See the NYC architecture honored by AIA's Annual Design Awards, in photos

See which of the city's many architecture and urban planning projects got the nod

Each year, the AIA New York Design Awards celebrates some of the country's most notable and ambitious projects in architecture, interior design, and urban planning. And with so much happening in New York City at any given point, projects in the five boroughs almost always manage to snag honors—and 2017 was no different.

The top award this year year went to Columbia University's new cascading medical building, designed by Diller, Scofidio + Renfro. There were plenty of other honorable merits for projects like A/D/O in Brooklyn, as well as more surprising ones, like Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's boxy design for the Bronx's Public Safety Answering Center II.

Every project was selected based on its "design quality, response to its context and community, program resolution, innovation, thoughtfulness, and technique." From a historic Tribeca building with a hidden penthouse to pink X-shaped chairs in Times Square, here's a list of New York's winners.

Iwan Baan

Best in Competition

Columbia University's Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Center was designed by Diller, Scofidio + Renfro along with Gensler. The zig-zagging building recently wrapped up construction and is home to classrooms, training facilities, simulation areas, and a 275-seat auditorium. The building won for AIA New York Award for Best in Competition as well an Honors in the Architecture category.

Merit Awards, Architecture

Michael Moran OTTO

↑ SculptureCenter, a contemporary art museum in Long Island City, was one of four New York City-based projects to win a merit award. The building was designed by Andrew Berman Architect and its industrial-inspired red facade stands out among the glassy towers that surround it.

Frank Oudeman

↑ nArchitects took Greenpoint's former Brooklyn Night Bazaar building and redesigned it into a flexible workspace and design collaboration center called A/D/O. "We chose to create variable connections between gastro, event, design, exhibition and retail spaces," nARCHITECTS Principal Eric Bunge explained of the design. The 23,000-square-foot space consists of a design shop, a fabrication studio, and a restaurant helmed by Scandinavian chefs Fredrik Berselius and Claus Meyer.

Albert Verserka ESTO

↑ In the Bronx, starchitects Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill (SOM) created a bunker-like aesthetic for the Public Safety Answering Center II, which serves as a call center for the city's 911 operators. It's been lauded by AIA, among others, for its unique appearance.

Bruce Damonte

↑ In 2015, architecture firm WORKac was tasked with reconfiguring Tribeca's Stealth Building at 93 Reade Street into four apartments. Developers Knightsbridge Properties wanted a penthouse added but since the property is within a historic district, the addition had to be invisible from street level. The result is a hidden glass triplex that goes undetected to pedestrians.

Projects, Honor Awards

SocialShutterbug.com

↑ The Jewish Museum introduced the first exhibition in the United States to showcase over 180 rare works from French designer and architect Pierre Chareau. According to the museum's website, "Pierre Chareau: Modern Architecture and Design" "addresses Chareau's life and work in the New York area, after he left Paris during the German occupation of the city." The exhibit was also designed by DS+R.

Practice for Architecture and Urbanism

↑ Shortly after Governor Andrew Cuomo formally unveiled plans to revamp Penn Station, Practice for Architecture and Urbanism founder Vishaan Chakrabarti came up with an alternate concept that would repurpose Madison Square Garden and incorporate it into the station. It involved moving Madison Square Garden and repurposing its circular structure as an airy component of the larger Penn Station complex. In September 2016, Chakrabarti presented his proposal, entitled Penn Palimpsest: History Becomes the Future, for which he received a nod from AIA.

Thomas Loof

↑ In November 2016, the Museum of the City of New York launched "New York at its Core," a new permanent exhibit devoted to NYC's long and tumultuous past, and its even more challenging future. Part of the exhibition includes an interactive space, called the Future City Lab, designed by NYC firm Local Projects, that uses engaging visuals to explore five crucial issues: housing, the environment, transit, jobs, and diversity.

Rob Kassabian

↑ Back in August, German artist and architect J. Mayer H., drew inspiration from the "X-like intersection of Broadway and Seventh Avenue that forms Times Square" as well as from the area's gritty past, to introduce three "X" shaped pink lounge chairs as an interactive installation called "XXX Times Square With Love."

Urban Design, Merit

DLANDstudio

↑ DLANDstudio Architecture launched the pilot for Sponge Park, a green space along the Gowanus Canal, which features plants that, like a sponge, absorb and break down toxins and contaminants.

KPF

↑ As part of a Hurricane Sandy recovery program, NYCHA's Red Hook Houses is getting new new backup power plants and power distribution pods, designed by Kohn Pederson Fox, that will also be raised to accommodate retail spaces.

Studio V Architecture

↑ Studio V Architecture and Ken Smith Workshop received merit for their design for Maker Park, an "alternative design plan" for a portion of Williamsburg's long-stalled Bushwick Inlet Park. It calls for turning a seven-acre site that was once home to the Bayside Oil Depot into a park that would, in theory, honor the "creative and dynamic" legacy of the area.

• 2017 AIA Design Awards Winners [Official]